1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a mobile messaging service for use in mobile communication terminals, e.g. mobile phones, and more particularly to a method for inputting an address of a predetermined receiver to whom such a message is to be transmitted. The present invention relates further to a computer-readable recording medium provided with a software program embodying the aforementioned method.
2. Description of the Related Arts
Recently, mobile phones have been in common use of many people as one of the necessities of life such as automobiles, wired telephones, etc., owing to their handiness, mobility and convenience in using. Most of the mobile phones in current use are generally designed to provide their users with a variety of convenient additional functions such as telephone number registration (address book), personal schedule management and others. This has now advanced to a kind of an integrated personal information management (PIM) service, as well as conventional telephone call services.
Short Message Service (SMS) may be one of such additional functions most used in mobile phones, which enables wireless transmission of characters and/or alphanumeric messages between a mobile station and a communication network. Referring now to FIGS. 1A to 1D, there are illustrated a sequence of operational steps for inputting a phone number of a predetermined receiver using SMS function in a conventional type of mobile phone. According to the above input procedure for sending an SMS message in the mobile phone, the user inputs a short message reading, for example, “Hi How are you, today? Please contact me now and then”, as shown in FIG. 1a. using keypads on the phone. After completing inputting the short message, the user is asked, as shown in FIG. 1b, whether the input message is to be stored in the phone. Then, an input window for telephone numbers of the recipients of the message is activated (FIG. 1C) irrespectively of storing of the input message in FIG. 1b. If the user does not remember a phone number for a certain recipient or called party, then he would be able to use a “Look-up” key function generally provided on the display window, thereby enabling him to search for any selected one of the phone numbers stored in a look-up table of the mobile phone, as shown in FIG. 1D.
FIG. 2 shows a schematic block diagram of general circuit arrangement of a conventional mobile phone by way of example. Referring now to this block diagram, a controller 200 controls processing of the operations and functions such as telephone calling, mobile Internet accessing, SMS transmitting, etc. A memory 202 electrically connected to the controller includes a Read Only Memory (ROM) for storing a micro-coded program and a set of reference data required for the operation and processing in the controller, a Random Access Memory (RAM) assigned for a working memory of the controller 200, and a flash memory (Flash RAM) providing a memory area assigned for storing various multi-media data and other necessary data subject to frequent updating. A voice processing circuit 204 coupled with the controller 200 provides processing of a telephone calling operation through a microphone and speaker, voice recording, and an alarm for notifying of an incoming call. Display 206 makes a display of various data or information for the user as requested under the control of the controller using the mobile phone. A key input section 208 is comprised of a series of alphanumeric keys and various function keys such as “Menu, Call, Delete, End, Volume, #, *, etc.” and provides the controller 200 with key input data corresponding to a specific key depressed by the user. A radio frequency section 210 serves to communicate radio frequency signals with selected base stations on a mobile communication network via antenna.
FIG. 3 shows a flow chart for a method for inputting a phone number of a given receiver upon using SMS transmission in a conventional mobile phone. Referring to the flow chart, an SMS message prepared by the user of the mobile phone is inputted in step 301 as shown in FIG. 1A and then it is determined in step 302 whether or not the SMS message is to be stored into a memory. Depending upon a result of the above confirmation, the SMS message is stored into memory in step 303 or a phone number input window is displayed without storing the message in step 304. At this point the user cannot correct or change the inputted SMS message on the phone number input window, since the phone number input window now activated is different from a window for the SMS message. Thus, in order to make any correction or confirmation to the SMS message, the user needs to close the current phone number input window in order to return to the SMS service window and to retrieve the stored message again or re-enter a whole SMS message from the beginning.
Inputting of a specific phone number through the phone number input window is generally carried out in two ways: firstly, inputting of a phone number using the “Look-Up” button as seen in steps 305 and 307, and secondly, inputting of a phone number directly into the phone number input window as shown in step 306. Hence, the SMS message is finally transmitted in step 308 to the phone number inputted (or multiple phone numbers) via either one of the above two ways.
The above-described conventional method of inputting a phone number of a receiver, as shown with reference to FIG. 3, is disadvantageous in that the user of the mobile phone cannot make any correction to the inputted SMS message on the phone number input window. Thus, in order to make any correction or confirmation to the SMS message prior to transmission, the user must close the currently activated phone number input window in order to return to the previous SMS service window and to retrieve the stored message again or re-enter a whole SMS message from the beginning, thereby leading to great inconvenience of the user when using SMS function with the mobile phone.
Furthermore, in a mobile communication service, recently most of mobile subscribers tend to use such an SMS service more frequently and with longer messages. Therefore, there have been a great deal of demands in the state of the art for development of a method for searching or inputting a phone number of more frequent recipients more quickly and efficiently, e.g. by means of utilizing a short-key dialing or memory dialing, upon using the SMS service or a phone calling in the mobile phone.